Rush Hour
by RisemboolRanger
Summary: "My name is Charley Goode and I'm not the fastest person alive by any stretch. That title belongs to someone else. But I am going to catch him." Charley doesn't know the meaning of stopping to smell the flowers. Instead, she lives life to its limits. Her latest goal is to achieve the impossible, but to do that, she's going to need some help. Ray/OC


_My name is Charley Goode and I'm not the fastest person alive by any stretch. That title belongs to someone else. But I_ am _going to catch him..._

Running was just my thing. My life was all about speed. Every high, every burst of adrenaline, every worthwhile moment came down to speed. I was mostly human, so I still wasn't fast enough yet, but I was working on that. I was still very fast compared to most people. Unnaturally fast. Which was a good thing, because right now, I _needed_ to be fast.

The wind whistled through my ears as I ran - the sharper, colder edge to it biting at my face. But still I ploughed on, pushing my body closer to its limits and forcing myself to go faster still. My heartbeat pounded, but it was still in a good and steady, if elevated, rhythm. I was used to this. I was _made_ to do this. There was no greater feeling than moving at high speeds. My heart wasn't just thrumming from the physical exertion - it was one part adrenaline too.

The air rippled through the short spikes of my hair. Though it had certainly been a good idea to just chop it all off one day - long hair was definitely a pain in the ass when you spent as much time running as I did; I'd gotten fed up of arriving at places looking like the beast from the black lagoon - I was still sure to turn up at my destination with some serious bed hair. I blinked furiously as the wind stung my eyes. No matter how many times I told myself I needed to remember to invest in a pair of shades or flying goggles in time for my next run, I still always forgot. My mind was good for storing data; not so much for retaining the odd passing thought.

"Hurry, Charley! The trap's already been put into motion!" The voice coming through my earpiece informed me anxiously.

"Got it," I replied in a clipped tone and threw myself into my run with even more vigour.

I reached the edge of the city and this was where things got tougher. No more flat out sprinting. This was rush hour. There were people and cars everywhere. I may have been unnaturally fast, but it wasn't like I could phase through solid objects. That would be crazy. I was going to have to get creative if I wanted to be able to navigate this next challenge swiftly. Luckily for me, I considered creativity to be my next strongest point, directly after my speed.

I ploughed my way through the crowds, passing block after block. Even though I was small, most people saw me coming and would swerve out of my way, presenting me with a clearer path. Those who didn't got knocked into the person closest to them as I barrelled past. More than one shouted after me, but by that point, I was already gone. I knew that people were staring after me - I was abnormally fast, after all, and most of them probably weren't even sure what they'd seen pass them by. But I wasn't impossibly fast. The going was still difficult. I was losing too much time. I needed to get away from the crowds, even if it meant taking my run to the danger zone.

I managed to extract myself from the throng of people with much pushing and charging, and escaped onto the streets. Some of the roads still had the moving flow of cars, but most of them were just bogged down with traffic. Rush hour, urgh. I'd never really understood why it was called that. It just didn't make sense. 'Rush' implied a sense of speed and urgency. That wasn't really represented well by a pile-up of cars that barely moved at anything more than a complete stand-still. The only sense of urgency demonstrated by the waiting drivers was the blaring of horns that did nothing to clear their pathway for them, and everything just to piss everyone else off.

Some of the horns were aimed at me as I darted through the minute gaps in between the stationary cars with as much speed as I could manage. I caught my leg on the edge of a bumper more than once, but I didn't allow it to slow me down. I had good reflexes - I was still faring way better than most people would have. One asshole in a yellow cab clearly didn't approve of my street-crossing method and attempted to bump my legs as I ran through the already tiny space between him and the car in front. He wasn't quite so eager to move on when I avoided it by rolling across the hood of his car.

This actually seemed to be a good technique, I realised as I rolled to safety on the other side of the accelerator-happy cab driver. I vaulted another couple of cars, then completed a perfect roll over a third, all the while ignoring the horns and the raised fists of the angry drivers inside. Chill, guys. I weigh a hundred and two pounds - I didn't leave a dent or even a scratch on any one of them.

"Faster, Charley! You're running out of time!" the voice in my ear urged.

"I'm trying!" I protested in frustration, as another cab driver - it was _always_ the cab drivers - tried to squish me up against the next car in line. I resisted the urge to stop and kick one of his shiny wheel trims and forced myself onwards.

"Take the next left on Third and Weston," I was told. "Follow it round onto the side roads. There'll be less people."

"I don't know my way from there," I pointed out, sliding across another car hood like I was in a cop movie. That one actually felt good. "I can't afford to get lost now!"

"Just follow it and I'll guide you down another route," my advisor promised.

"Roger."

I did as I was told and followed the turning that had been pointed out to me. It led me onto a web of side roads that were completely unfamiliar to me. When you lived in a busy town like Starling City, you could never recognise every single street. I knew that I needed to be heading east still, so I turned right onto the next street and kept going straight, pushing my run up into a sprint again. I'd been running for a long time now. My muscles were finally starting to protest, my breathing becoming a little more laboured, but I couldn't stop yet. I really was going to run out of time.

I could see that I was reaching an impasse in the road. "Which way? Right or left?"

"Err..."

"Which way, dammit!" I demanded through the mic that was fixed neatly underneath my jaw line.

"I don't know; I can't make sense of your stupid map screen!"

" _Come on_!" I was nearing the crossroads now. If I stopped even for one second, then it was over. I didn't have that second to waste - the clock was still ticking.

Thankfully, my helper managed to get it together in the nick of time. "Left, left, go left!"

I followed my instructions and took the turn. It led me back out onto a main road with the rare sight of free-moving traffic. I was a road that I recognised, so I knew that I had just two more blocks to go. My heart lifted. I might actually make it in time. It wasn't over yet!

I made a dash across the busy street, right through the path of two oncoming cars. One squealed to a stop with a screech of brakes and tyres against asphalt. The other wasn't as quick to slow down and missed me by mere inches. That didn't matter though - _I_ was definitely quick enough. A long bleat on one of the horns followed after me. I didn't care. It wasn't like that was the first, second or even seventh driver I'd managed to piss off today.

Just two more blocks. The thought banished the ache from my muscles as I pushed myself to be even faster. I was so close now...

"You're gonna have to go round the back and up the fire escape," my earpiece told me.

"Huh?"

"You really think the front door's just gonna be left open for you to get in? It'll be locked."

"Goddamn," I swore. This was purposely being made even harder for me.

I crossed the final few blocks and found the apartment building in question. I darted along the side wall towards the back of the building, seeking out the fire escape that was going to provide me with my alternative way in. The rickety metal structure was parked too high up, above the usual safety position, held in place by years of rust that were obvious even from this distance. It wasn't coming down anytime soon and it was certainly out of reach for most people who were only topping five feet in height.

I wasn't fussed about my reach though, as I certainly wasn't most people. I had other skills in my personal arsenal that would more than make up for that. And now that I was off the main streets and more out of sight, I could finally start utilising some of my _really_ fun abilities.

I didn't break from my run and continued sprinting forwards with the fire escape in my sight. As I neared it, I took one long bound and used all the tensile strength in my legs to leap for the ladder. It was positioned about eight feet above the ground, but I was able to easily latch my hands onto the third rung up. Oh yeah, I'm not just super fast; I'm also super springy.

It took me seconds to climb up to the top floor, scrambling my way around the ladders with all the reflexes of a cat. Ha... I'd have to remember to recount that one later on. When I reached the fire exit door at the top, I threw my shoulder against it with all of my weight behind it. The safety catch snapped easily and I all but fell into the corridor.

"Charley, five seconds!" the voice in my ear alerted me desperately. "The trap's gonna go off!"

Ah, hell. I broke into a run again, even faster than before. The squeaking of my shoes against the linoleum floor petered out as I got faster and faster. It was almost as if the sound couldn't keep up with me, though I knew it was really because I was becoming lighter on my feet with the speed - running so fast that I was practically flying along the corridor.

I found the door I needed and charged through it, snapping the door back on its hinges as I burst into the room. I had a second to take in a girl with blonde hair sitting at the window, looking round at me in surprise, and then, there in the open plan kitchen, was the trap I had to stop. It was a complicated framework, rigged with guttering and ball bearings. I could see that the ball bearing had already reached the end of the slope and I watched time stand still as it touched the trigger that activated the final part of the trap.

I dove for it, flinging myself across the room as the trap released an open can of Red Bull. I landed underneath the trap and caught the can right side up in my outstretched hand without spilling even a single drop on the brand new floor that I'd tiled myself only last week.

"And she's safe!" I exclaimed triumphantly with a fist pump of my free hand. I sat up and took a celebratory swig from my booty of Red Bull. It was still fizzy, of course. It hadn't been open that long - it had taken me about five minutes to cross the city, even though it had felt like much longer. It certainly would have been for anyone else.

There was a small beep from the other side of the room. "Four minutes and thirty seconds exactly. You beat your old record."

The blonde that had been sat by the window held up the stop watch in confirmation. She was the voice that had been in my ear the whole time. She was my partner in shenanigans and also my best friend.

Martine Shua, known collectively as Marty and then exclusively to me as McFly - come on, it's an awesome nickname - was twenty four years old, a licensed biologist and chemist and was currently grinning her trademark grin at me, her hair tied up into her preferred style of two untidy bunches that caused the strands to stick up like pineapples. She'd been with me for the last seven years and she was the most important person in my life. It was probably sweeping statements like that which made people think we were both lesbians, even though it was actually only her. I just looked more the part, apparently.

"It's about time." I got to my feet and set the Red Bull down on the sideboard, next to the trap, then started stretching out my arms to wind down. "I've been stuck on four fifty-five for ages now."

"It's true what they say about training," said McFly. "Even superheroes need it to improve!"

I rolled my eyes at her. "I'm not super-anything, McFly. I'm just a science experiment gone wrong."

"They say all those meta-humans they have in Central City were made that way by the particle accelerator explosion. You were affected by it as well, so that makes you a meta-human too," McFly pointed out.

"But science experiment sounds more badass..."

I knew she was right though. When McFly had started at her current biology lab, the man who ran it had taken note of her expertise and offered her a much higher pay grade for a project that was definitely much more under the radar. Human experimentation. McFly had taken the offer on the understanding that all participants were completely willing, fully understood all of the risks and were well treated and well paid. Good treatment and good pay sounded just dandy to me, so I decided to help out my bestie by signing myself up for the testing part.

The tests were designed to put animal hormones into humans in order to try and pass on some of their dominant genetic traits. I know, it sounds kinda freakish, but it wasn't like it made us grow tails or animal claws or anything like that. The project was designed to give people an animal's strengths. If you gave someone genes from an ant, then would that make them super strong? If you gave them goldfish DNA, would they become able to breathe underwater? Not all of the experiments worked. Mine was one of the few that did, though McFly would probably disagree to an extent.

For the project, we were administered a regular series of injections, containing the relevant hormones to our animal, we well as other chemicals to combat any nasty side effects. Don't ask me what was in them - I majored in tech; not biology. All of that went down swimmingly, besides the fact that I got addicted to them. That was the downside. I was already a bit of a speed nut by then and every round of injections boosted my speed, if only slightly. With that knowledge of improvement came a great rush of adrenaline every time. I wanted to get even faster. I needed to get faster.

McFly realised what was happening to me, so she tried to drop me from the project, for my own sake. Of course, I was so obsessed at the time that I couldn't see that. It was the one blip in our friendship history. When they took away my access to the lab, I used the last opportunity I had to steal a case of the needles and fled to the train station, jumping on the first train that showed. Central City. That was where I wound up.

There were actually many trains going there that day. Unbeknownst to me, Central City was a hot spot at that time. They were switching on something called a particle accelerator, which was apparently going to change the way everything in science worked. I knew nothing about it, nor did I care. I got off the train, shut myself in a cubicle of the public bathrooms at the station and shot myself full of as many injections' worth of chemicals as I could. I managed four and that was when my life then changed completely.

I don't remember the explosion. Apparently there was one, but I just don't remember it. All I remember is waking up on the floor of the bathrooms. That wasn't the life changing part - that was the very unpleasant part, as I'm sure you can imagine. But once I picked myself up and had finished grossing out and attempting to splash myself with as much water as I could from the sinks, I realised that I felt different. Lighter, yet stronger somehow. It doesn't sound like it'd be something you'd particularly notice, but it was. Oh man, it was.

It didn't take McFly long to catch up with me. Since she knew me so well, she knew the kind of action I'd take after stealing the case from the lab, and with all the trains that were heading to Central City, she took an easy guess as to where I'd end up. She didn't get there until after the particle accelerator explosion, but she arrived amidst the panic before they could cut off all the trains and she found me before I left the bathrooms. After seeing that I was fine, she gave me a well-deserved talking to and dragged me back to Starling City as soon as the transport was running again.

From then, I started to realise what I could do. Speed, agility and jumping skills that I'd never had before. Whatever had happened when the particle accelerator had exploded had fused the hormones and the chemicals with my very DNA, mutating it into something that was far more powerful than what I'd experienced from the effects of the injections. That was another thing I hadn't really understood. I had a good grasp of physics, but not biology or chemistry. My expertise lay with machines, rather than bodies. The only thing I did understand was that I didn't need the injections anymore - I had something far better now than what they'd ever given me.

But that didn't mean that I didn't want to get faster still. Hey, old habits die hard.

"Well, meta-humans sound like they're practically part of the norm in Central City nowadays, so that'll probably get you more of a chance in finding the Flash than being a science experiment gone wrong will," McFly countered.

"True..."

That was my goal for finding the ultimate speed. The Flash was a man from Central City, who was only seen in a red suit and, more importantly, could move at the speed of sound. To be honest, I wasn't quite sure what would happen when I found him. Maybe he could give me some tips, tell me how exactly he got his speed or maybe just give me a ride along. Because the ultimate goal was that one day, I wanted to be fast enough to catch him myself. Either way, I needed to find him first. I just wasn't sure how. At least, I hadn't been until now.

I'd spent a good deal of time in Central City trying to find him, with no luck. Trying to find someone who was that fast, when you had no idea where to even look, really was impossible. I was fast, but not fast enough. Story of my life. In the end, I had to return to my drawing board back in Starling City. With no other genius ideas in mind, I'd been spending my time training myself to be faster. I already had a head start with my weird mutated DNA thing going on and McFly was right - training really did help, no matter who you were. But now I had a plan that was better than just racing across the city and trying to beat my homemade, Mouse Trap style, Red Bull tipping machine.

"Or maybe it's another aspect of science I need," I continued. "I've been thinking about this a lot and speed has gotten me nowhere so far. What I need is smarts and some _real_ technology. So I've had an idea... Who do you know of who has the best tech in the city?"

McFly frowned for only a moment. Because she was always on my wavelength, she caught on soon enough. "You mean the man in the metal suit? But how exactly are you going to find him when you already can't find the Flash?"

"Because the man in the metal suit may be a lot easier to pin down. We know that he wears some super high-tech suit that can fly, of all things. So what does that tell you?"

"He likes gadgets?" McFly replied dryly.

I rolled my eyes. "Not that."

"He's pretty smart?"

"Most likely, if he designed the suit himself." Now she was getting into it. "What else?"

"He has a lot of money?"

"Now you're talking!" I said happily. "So who in Starling City do we know for certain has a lot of money?"

"Well, my first suggestion would be Oliver Queen, but obviously that's a no-go, seeing as he went bankrupt and lost his company and what-not."

"So who would be your second choice?"

"Hmm, I'd say the man who took over his company, Ray Palmer. Wait..." I practically saw the light dawn in her eyes, probably not helped by the knowing grin that had spread across my face. "That's what you're onto, isn't it? He has a lot of money, he's clearly smart if he can run such a big company, the man in the metal suit first showed up _after_ he took over at Queen Consolidated, meaning he would get access to even more money and more resources..."

"Exactly," I said smugly. I'd thought this through a lot and I was quite certain of my conclusion. Even more so now that McFly was making the same connection. "It's at least worth a try."

"But what are you gonna do? Just waltz up to Queen Consolidated and tell him you want help catching the Flash? Because I think you may get laughed out of there."

"Of course not," I replied like it was obvious. "I need to be sure he is the man in the metal suit first, before I let on anything about what I'm really up to."

"Oh yeah? And how are you gonna do that? Just ask him if he enjoys flying around town at night?"

"Give me some credit. I was thinking that if I can get some bugs planted inside the offices at Queen Consolidated, then maybe I can get a little inside info. And if it turns out that it isn't him, then we can remove the bugs, look for a new target and nobody will be any the wiser." Simple.

McFly was more sceptical. "You realise your breaking and entering skills are practically non-existent, right? Being fast and agile doesn't mean you don't still clomp around with your big feet."

"I do not have big feet!" I protested. "Besides, I didn't say I was going to be the one planting the bugs, did I?"

"Then who?"

I grinned. "This is the part of the plan that you're going to like. She's a girl I met one of the times I was in Central City. She happens to be _very_ skilled at breaking and entering."

"She's hot, isn't she? That's why I'm going to like this part." McFly was suddenly a lot happier about my plan.

I laughed. My best friend was so easy to predict. "Let's just say that if this was Now You See Me, then I'd be Jesse Eisenberg, you'd be Michael Caine and she'd most definitely be Isla Fisher."

"Ah, Isla Fisher... Now that is a goddess right there. I'd beg her on my hands and knees just for one night of action," said McFly dreamily. I knew. I'd seen way too many semi-nude pictures of her than any straight woman should have. "Hey, wait, why am I Michael Caine?"

"It's either that or you have to be Dave Franco or Woody Harrelson."

"Good point." McFly hated the Franco brothers. And Woody Harrelson had no hair. "Okay, so your friend who I very much now want to meet is gonna plant the bugs, you're gonna find out if this is the guy in the metal suit or not, and then what? Don't you think the owner of a huge company is gonna have better things to do than help some random girl chase down a meta-human from another city?"

"Sure, he will. So I'll need to strike up some kind of deal instead. Which is where I get to bring in _my_ favourite part of the plan," I grinned. I pushed my drink aside and rummaged through one of the drawers above the food cupboards until I pulled out something that looked embarrassingly like a sonic screwdriver. I was still trying to forget my teenage Doctor Who days. "Do you remember this?"

"You mean your magic stick thingy that I still have no idea what it does?"

"Hey, this was my favourite toy back in school," I tutted. Mechanics had always been my major. "Thanks to its badass magnetic field, this baby can scramble any circuit I turn it on. So bye bye, electrics."

"This is back from your geek rebel days, isn't it?"

"Totally." I tossed my favourite gadget up in the air and caught it again after it completed a few spins. "Screwing with the school computers was my teen calling. What better way to ruin a class?"

"So, what? You're gonna just destroy his suit?" McFly asked. That sceptical look was back.

"Of course," I said innocently. "I need to make damn sure that he needs a mechanic."

 **XXX**

 **Author's Note!**

This story is one I where I was brainstorming ideas for a long time before ever writing. I actually tried to resist the whole thing, because over the last year or so I've been concentrating more on original projects than fanfiction, so I really wanted to stop making fan characters that I likely wouldn't use much. But I then actually got to meet the wonderful Mr. Brandon Routh himself at City of Heroes last May and then I couldn't stop myself from finding the time to fully plan out this character and her story xD

This starts off in the Arrow universe obviously, seeing as Charley lives in Starling City, and will also clearly be branching over into The Flash at some point. And now that we have Legends of Tomorrow upcoming very soon, I'm sure I'll find ways to include nods and/or crossovers of that too. God, I love all this DC stuff!

Speaking of the crossovers, I also have plans to have this mix with other DC stories of mine. If any of you read my Flash story "Good Vibrations", then you may be familiar with the girl from Central City that Charley's talking about ;D


End file.
